Mirrorman
by TobyTCH
Summary: One month after Miranda was revealed to the 'Verse, things are not looking up for the crew of Serenity. Not only are they still reeling from the loss of Book and Wash, they are also flat broke. Enter Alex Gunbar, an old friend of Mal and Zoe. He needs their help, and they need his. Friends and enemies both old and new turn up along the way, making their journey one hell of a ride.


Alex Gunbar strolled back through town, whistling idly as he went. He wore a dark working trousers with suspenders and a sleeveless T-shirt. A heavily battered and much repaired brown leather coat hung down to his knees, it's arms also removed, a red scarf around his neck. A stiff, broad brimmed leather hat, the same colour as his coat, kept the rain off his head.

The whole outfit told the world what he was without a shadow of a doubt, but that wasn't what drew people's eyes to him. His left arm was a prosthetic. When I say prosthetic, I don't mean a wooden carving as was often the case on poor moons like Dyton, I mean a highly advanced titanium alloy skeletal structure grafted onto his body and integrated with his nervous system. Very rare and expensive for anyone, let alone a Browncoat.

Whilst Gunabar's strolled along a group of men watched him with something approaching hate in their eyes. They were grouped just outside a pub that proudly flew the Alliance flag on its rickety flagpole, pictures lining the walls showing many of them in purple uniforms, brandishing rifles. They were drunk, surly and sure of themselves, exactly what Alex wanted. He watched discreetly from under the brim of his hat as the group of four stomped out onto a street. Despite himself, a grin formed on his lips.

He slowed his pace, allowing them to surround him, mentally counting their guns and guessing as to who could draw the fastest. He stopped walking, finding himself face to face with a beefy looking man who would never have fitted into his old Purple Belly armour. Alex spoke first, the biggest shit eating grin that he could manage directed at the fat man's scowl.

"Hullo there Sam. Lovely day ain't it? You enjoyed skiving off and letting the rest of us pick up your workload again?" The four men let out drunken growls and made a big show of putting their hands on the butts of their pistols as Fat Sam answered with his usual eloquence.

"Shut yor' mouth, you fiwlfy Browncoat! Did I say that tha' yew could talk ta me?!" Alex's grin broadened in a way that he knew would piss Sam off.

"Well, ain't this a bloody surprise, you're even more drunk than I expected. Impressive that is Sam, very bleedin' impressive." Sam stalked forward, his friends leering as they swayed slightly.

"I asked yew a question." He raised a sausage like finger, and shoved it into Graham's chest. "Now answer me yew pig ruttin' son of a who- AAARGH." Graham moved faster than a snake, his metallic left hand grabbing the offending finger and bending it back to the point of breaking whilst his right conjured up a small, squarish pistol that he jammed under fat Sam's third chin. Around him, the other men gawped, then started reaching for their holsters. Alex snapped out an order in his best sergeant's voice.

"Don't move, or Sammy boy's brains'll decorate the pavement, savvy?" They froze, hands halfway to their holsters, looking uncertain. Alex pushed his pistol against Fat Sam's third chin raising the shorter man onto his tiptoes.

"Do wot 'e says," he yelped, voice rising in pitch. Their hands dropped, and they watched on nervously.

"Good lad Sam. Now, wot exactly were you sayin' about my mum?" Whatever answer Fat Sam would have given was lost, a deep boom sounding from above them. Everyone looked up. They knew it wasn't thunder. Six ships were diving towards Blackwall at a speed that could only be called insane. They had been battered around and covered in what looked like red paint. The charred skeletons nailed to the hull were the next give away of their origin. It was the smoke that poured from the engines, making the already dark sky pitch black that drove the final nail into the coffin.

"Reavers," Alex breathed as alarms started to blare. Suddenly, the street exploded into action. Alex let go of Sam's finger as people spilled out of the pup, gazing upwards. To his credit, Sam didn't even flinch. He just started bellowing orders at the men around him.

"Don't just stand there you bleedin' eejits! Get weapons and protect the town!" People were shaken from their stupor almost immediately. A fat bully he may be, but Sam Johnson was a retired army sergeant just like the man he had been insulting a moment before. When he shouted in a crisis, people listened. He turned to Alex, but the Browncoat was already talking.

"Sam! You sort out this lot, I'll go to the square and protect it as best I can." He started moved off but Sam caught his arm, suddenly sober.

"Good luck Gunbar." Alex nodded, eager to be off, but he managed to make it look meaningful.

"You too Reynolds." He took off at a dead sprint, coat flapping out behind him like a cape. As he ran he checked his weapons. A Webley Mk. VI revolver was at his hip, but that was just to show that he was armed, the real firepower was out of sight. Two Browning Hi Powers sat in shoulder holsters, chambered for .40 S&W, a 12 gauge double barrelled shotgun rested on his right thigh, a Tec-9 modified machine pistol was on his left with about a dozen daggers and knives completing the small arsenal. On any other day, that would have been called paranoid, but today, that was well prepared.

Alex leapt down into a sunken street that led straight to Blackwall's only square. He heard some of the ships land ahead of him. Or crash. It was hard to tell with Reavers. The howls that followed however were unmistakeable, and sent a shiver down his spine. Those howls were a death cry for all who heard them all over the outer rim. And he was running right towards them.

When Alex reached the square, the battle, if that's what you could call it, had already started. Around three hundred townspeople had managed to arm themselves and gathered at the square. They never stood a chance. Hundreds of Reavers spilled out of ships that had crushed buildings with their bulk, and crashed like a wave onto the defenders.

Alex dived right in, a Hi Power in each hand. He saw his neighbor, a pretty redhead that he sometimes slept with, go down under two Reavers. She screamed as their teeth dug into her flesh, one ripping at her dress. He shot them both, a round each crashing into their skulls.

There was no time to check on whether she was alright before another Reaver rushed at him. As he ducked a wild swing, he noticed that it was a woman. She had cut her own breasts off. One of his pistols fired again, sending a round through her heart. She fell back, and was replaced by a small crowd of her kin, blood on their hands, meat in their teeth. Crack, crack, crack went his pistols, again and again. They fell to the floor, the last one skidding to a halt at his feet. All too soon, more replaced them.

The next few minutes were a blur of blood and death. Only a few things really stood out during that brief maelstrom of chaos. His best friend and fellow Browncoat Lucas going down under a wave of Reavers, pulling the pin in a grenade as he did. The mayor, a tough woman who didn't mind standing up to the Alliance Magistrate screaming as she was raped again and again. A bloodstained Fat Sam arriving with reinforcements and getting mown down by a psycho with a light machine gun.

That was when he had run out of ammo, his Tec-9 clicking in his hands. I went back in its holster and his hands closed around the worn hilts of two large Bowie knives sheathed on the back of his belt. No going back now.

Reavers charged him, savage masters of their bloody craft, swords and axes clenched in mutilated fists, deadly in their simple purpose. They died. Alex Gunbar moved like lightning, sudden and unpredictable. They couldn't keep up with his flashing blades and got lost in the folds of his long leather coat. Still, even this wasn't enough.

The sheer amount of horror made it seem like such a long time, but in truth it took mere minutes for the Reavers to cut the fighters down to a small group fighting with their backs to the wall as they were slowly hacked and slashed to pieces.

It was in that small group that someone decided that it was time to end it all. Somehow, Alex heard the pins drop to the floor, a quiet tinkling. The safety levers were louder, more of a clatter. The blast that followed was the loudest of all.

* * *

><p>"LIOU COE SHWAY DUH BIAO TZE HUH HOE TZEDUH UR TZE!"<p>

"TAI KONG SUO YO DUH SHING CHIOU SAI JIN WUH DUH PEE GOO!"

The Serenity was not a happy place. Mal and Zoe stood on either sides of the table, faces red as the bellowed various insults at each other. In the corridors just outside stood the rest of the crew, not daring to go in. Kaylee and Simon peeked out of the hallway that led to the engine room, Jayne looming behind them, chewing on a protein bar.

"Gorram it Zoe, we are not heading off to Hera, not now, not in ten ruttin' years!" Mal was absolutely adamant, jaw set and fists clenched. Unfortunately for him, Zoe had the exact same look.

"It is the only place where we're goin' to get Serenity fixed up you Hwen Dahn! We don't have a choice!" Mal was already shaking his head.

"The hell we don't. I ain't ever been back to that hole an' I ain't never goin' to." They went back to shouting various insults at each other. Kaylee whispered to Simon and Jayne, clearly upset.

"It's like watchin' mom and dad fight." Simon nodded, but Jayne shrugged.

"When my folks got ornery, it usually involved more shootin' than shoutin'." Kaylee and Simon looked at him. He noticed them and frowned.

"What?" Simon sighed and shook his head.

"Nothing," they turned back to the mess hall. "That explains so much," he finished under his breath. Kaylee heard him and giggled, the sound drowned out by a particularly loud statement of Zoe's describing the thickness of Mal's skull. She winced.

"Are they ever gonna stop?" Based on the Mal's following reaction, a sharp comment of Zoe's latrine habits, the answer was no. The three in the doorway heard feet on metal behind them, and turned to see Inara coming towards them, looking worried.

"What are they arguing about now?" Simon answered her.

"Zoe thinks that we should go to Hera to get the Serenity repaired. The Captain disagrees. Vehemently." Inara rolled her eyes. Jayne looked puzzled.

"What th'hells the matter with Hera anyway? We've been worse places." Kaylee, Simon and Inara shared a glance. They knew what was on Hera. Inara explained it to him. Well, she tried.

"Serenity's on Hera." Jayne's brow furrowed deeper than a turnip field and he looked at her like she'd just said that grenades were pointless.

"No it ain't, we're still in space." Simon made a strangled noise that was covered by a particularly explosive outburst from Zoe, and Inara was actually lost for words. Luckily, Kaylee just smiled.

"Not the ship silly, the place it was named after. You know, the valley where Captain and Zoe fought all in the war." Jayne's eyes widened with comprehension, and he swallowed the last of his protein bar.

"Oh. Don't blame him if the Captain don't wanna go back." Inara had managed to recover her voice during Jayne's epiphany and spoke up, wincing as Mal roared something about Zoe's moonbrain being chewed on by a two headed calf.

"I've got to put a stop to this or they'll go on for hours." However, as she moved to step into the mess hall, Simon raised his hand to block her.

"Um, Inara don't you think that that may not be such a great idea?" She looked at him in a way a tiger did with a bothersome monkey. He seemed to not notice, despite the frost that crept into her voice.

"What do you mean?" He shrugged. Kaylee tugged his sleeve. Still, he didn't realise the pit that he was digging himself into. Jayne simply loomed, grinning happily around his protein bar.

"Well, you and Mal." Simon realised how deep he was and got out of it with his customary charisma. "You know." She most certainly had no idea what he was talking about.

"Mal and I what?!" He was fumbling now. Well, more than befor eat least.

"Uhhhh." Kaylee saved him from the daggers being thrown from Inara's glare as she noticed a new development in the mess hall.

"Oh look, what's River doin'?" As one, the group of four turned back to the mess. When River was doing something, it was usually best to pay attention. You would either be confused, or you would learn something. Sometimes both.

At that point in time, she had appeared at the end of the hallway that led up to the bridge and was gazing around the room as if looking for something. Mal and Zoe hadn't noticed her, and continued their tirade. River frowned, as if only now noticing the noise. It seemed to distract her from whatever she was searching for. Suddenly, she yelled loud enough to disturb the nearest asteroid.

"SHUT UP!" The sheer volume meant that Mal and Zoe were drowned out. They both jumped with surprise and turned to River, expecting more. They were disappointed. Nothing followed the very effective order, except that River, now satisfied with the quiet, continued looking around for whatever she was searching for. Mal broke the following awkward silence.

"River, what in the-" She scowled again and raised a finger to her lips.

"SHHH!" He raised his hands in defeat, and looked on in resignation. Rivers face suddenly broke out in a smile. On her way to her goal she didn't bother going around the table, instead jumping straight up onto it between Mal and Zoe, and then jumping back down when she reached the other side. There, she grabbed her battered leather boots that were three sizes too big, and slipped her feet into them. Then, cool as you like, she turned and jumped back up onto the table. This time however, she crouched down in front of Mal.

"You don't want to go to Serenity?" He scowled anticipating more bad news.

"No. I've had my troubles with that place, and I've no yearning need to revisit 'em." She frowned and cocked her head, looking at him thoughtfully.

"You are going though, the ragged man needs you." A vein throbbed in Mal's forehead, and he replied through gritted teeth, his aversion of return to Hera blowing past the idea that it may be a good idea to listen when River was in her foresight mood.

"The hell I am, this ragged man of yours can care fer himself like any other." River shook her head with a sad smile.

"His lever's been pulled, no telling where he's going to stop spinning. Miranda hurt him, might kill or claim him. You can help." At the mention of Miranda the entire mess hall seemed to shudder. Behind River, Zoe flinched but Mal's gaze had snapped up to meet River's and didn't see Zoe's hand brush against her stomach.

"What're you sayin' River? Who's this man?" She smiled, and tapped him on the head.

"You know. Zoe knows too. You don't know that you know, but I know that you will know when you need to know." With that, she was done, and hopped down from off of the table, boots clunking on the metal floor. She danced over to the hallway and disappeared, probably going up to the bridge. It was where she spent most of her time these days now that she was Serenity's pilot.

After a moment where everyone figured out who knew what, Mal turned to where Simon stood in the doorway.

"Doc, just how moonbrained was your sister just then, cause I'm havin' a little trouble processin' her crazy right now." Simon scowled slightly at the word crazy, but River's behaviour had worried him as well.

"She seemed fairly lucid and if she felt something about Hera then I think we should go." Mal's face darkened, but before he could explode at Simon, Inara piped up.

"Mal! Zoe, River and Simon are right. We need to go to Hera, it's the only place where we can get Serenity back into shape." Not so long ago this would have started another shouting match, but now, with some difficulty, the Captain swallowed whatever barb he was about to shoot off and instead defended his ship.

"The Serenity's fine. The repairs that we got done were up to a fine standard." He bumped his fist against the bulkhead. Behind him a panel fell out of the ceiling making them all jump as it hit the floor with an ominous clatter. Mal glowered at his ship.

"Traitor," he muttered under his breath. He turned back around to see the whole crew looking at him expectantly. He threw up his arms in defeat.

"Fine! We'll be heading off to Hera then." He stomped off towards the bridge.

"But don't be expectin' me t'be all cheerful durin' our stay!" He disappeared, muttering to himself. After a moment they heard him call up to River.

"River, set a course to Hera." Her voice rang back with a subtle hint of laughter.

"I already did that hours ago." Mal growled something about mutineers as the hatch that led to his quarters closed with an angry clatter.

The crew breathed a sigh of relief. Jayne piped up.

"Well, how long will it take to get to Hera?" Zoe answered.

"Another good six hours. I was there when River set the course." She said it with a small smile, and sat down looking tired.

"Do what you want for a while, we'll get everythin' ready when we're three hours out." Jayne was the first to leave, disappearing down into his quarters, muttering something about cleaning his guns. Simon and Kaylee vanished downstairs, probably to have sex in the med bay. Or the cargo hold. Or the unoccupied shuttle. Possibly all of the above. Only Inara stayed, sitting down with Zoe.

"Why doesn't Mal want to go back to Serenity? Wouldn't it bring him some closure?" Zoe sighed and leaned forward.

"Captain doesn't want to go back because his head's screwed on too tight, thinks that if he goes back he'll be relivin' it all over again. Serenity hurt him, broke his faith and killed most of those he considered friends. Truth is, with everythin' that's happened lately, we both need to go." She looked down at her hands. It had barely been a month since Wash had died. This was the first time that either her or Mal had managed to raise their voices above a whisper around each other.

"Have you ever been back there?" Zoe shook her head slowly.

"No. Thought about it, wanted to go. Wasn't fair on the Captain to ask him though. Now though, fairness doesn't matter one bit." Her hands once again drifted to her stomach. Inara noticed, and smiled slightly.

"How far along are you?" Zoe's head snapped up in alarm.

"What!?" Inara laughed kindly.

"Come on Zoe, you're pregnant! I am- was a companion remember? Pregnancy is something that we learn to recognise." Zoe reached over the table and gripped Inara's hand.

"You can't tell Mal!" Inara squeezed Zoe's hand.

"Don't worry, I won't. I understand that you want to keep it from him." Zoe smiled with relief, and released Iara's slightly crushed fingers from her grip.

"Thanks Inara." She pressed her hands to her stomach.

"I'm six weeks along. Found out not too long after the funeral." Sadness crossed her face, lines depending in response to the pain.

"It feels right, having a bit of Wash with me. I just wish he'd known." Inara reached over and took Zoe's hand, silently offering her sympathy. They sat there for a long time.

* * *

><p>Xue Shou sat with his back to the wall of his cell, watching the chaos rage outside. It was a prison riot of epic proportions, hundreds of inmates warring with guards all the way down the round mining shaft that was Diyu Dong prison. He wasn't alone in his cell, a girl sat to his left, strawberry blonde hair cut to shoulder length but drawn back into a short pony tail. She looked at him.<p>

"Now?" His ever present smile deepened and he shook his head, not meeting her gaze.

"Not yet Monu. We will wait for some more minutes." The woman seemed satisfied by that answer but instead of turning back to watch the madness, she studied her companion. He was Asian, short but with a wiry strength that showed in his bare arms and chest. He was handsome, a smile always on his lips and often reaching his dark eyes. He kept his hair short and from time to time ran his long fingers over it.

After a moment, Xue's gaze snapped to her in a way that seemed both calm and full of violent promise at the same time.

"See something that you like Monu?" She didn't flinch, her blue eyes meeting his black ones evenly. After a moment she calmly looked away, back to the madness of the riot, answering with a level voice.

"Maybe." Xue laughed, and also turned his gaze to the rest of Diyu Dong. They sat there for three more minutes, the violence outside their cell escalating, when suddenly a gunshot rang out. Xue was on his feet in the time it took to blink, somehow dragging the woman with him.

"Time to go." He went to the bars at the side of his cell, and wrenched at them. Two pieces of steel came free, a bit longer than his forearms, leaving him with a straight rod in either hand. The woman he called Monu simply drew two shivs from inside her smock.

They burst out into crowd as gunshots became more and more frequent. Xue moved like a storm, steel rods battering all who got in his way. The woman worked differently, staying close but trying to remain unseen. She wasn't afraid of using those shivs though, as several of the rioters found out the hard way.

They weren't moving through the crowd purposely. On its edges there lay several raised platforms that were used as sniper nests. There was one a bit lower than the others, the female guard on top of it wielding her rifle with absolute calm that was visible even behind her masked helmet. What most people didn't realise was that all of her targets were, in one way or another, a threat to Xue and his companion. The other guards didn't even notice when some of their own had holes punched through them.

Xue was a blur, the sound of metal smacking into flesh and body armour almost a steady beat over the roar of the prisoners. Both women watched his back, his fellow prisoner severing the vital arteries of anyone who got too close. They were at the base of the platform in less than a minute.

The sniper threw down a rope just as Xue arrived, but he didn't grab it right away, instead letting the woman go first. She scrambled up it like a strawberry blonde monkey, and was pulled onto the platform by the sniper. Xue followed in a matter of seconds, kicking a man who tried to follow in the face, sending him falling into the mine shaft. Once he rolled onto the wooden boards, the sniper cut the rope.

The armoured woman didn't waste any time, grabbing them both and dragging them back into the safety of the stone tunnel behind her. When she spoke, her voice sounded young, with a very posh British accent.

"Hurry up! We need to go now!" Xue bounced to his feet, the redhead just a little slower. He swept the masked woman up into his arms, and she laughed as his nimble fingers found her chin strap. The helmet fell to the floor with a thud and her laughter was suddenly muffled in Xue's mouth.

As her fellow escapees took a moment for themselves, the red haired woman studied the sniper. Tall, curvy, a wonderful ass, short blonde hair that was almost white. From what she had seen of the woman's face, she also looked extraordinarily beautiful, perfect even. That combined with the accent raised certain suspicions as to the woman's identity. This could be a problem.

After a moment, the couple parted, breathing heavily and grinning at each other. When it looked like they were going to go back at it, the redhead cleared her throat, a noise that could barely be heard over the blaring alarms and gunfire. Still, the couple parted, albeit slowly. The woman spoke again.

"Well, that was lovely, but yes it is time to go. Follow me." She set off at a run down the corridor, Xue and the redhead keeping pace. She spoke as they ran.

"I do wish that we had time for proper introductions, but clearly that's not an option right now so this will have to do. My name is Florence, and I'm sorry but I don't know yours, Xue has been awfully cagey." The redhead opened her mouth to reply, but Xue butted in with a harsh laugh.

"I have been cagey because she hasn't told me her real name, only a list of lies just as she will do now. I call her Monu for that is what she is." For some reason, whether it was his tone or the way the Xue saw right through all of her bullshit, that stung. She wouldn't let him win this one however.

She cast her mind back through the years and all of the names that she'd created for herself. Bridget, Helen, Saffron, Alexis, Caroline, Yolanda, and so many hundreds more. She went back, as far as she could, and for one dreadful moment, couldn't remember her own name. Just for one moment, but it still made her blood run cold even after the memory drifted back to her.

"My name is Gemma Moore." For once in a life of lies, it was the truth. Xue couldn't stop laughing until they were on a ship heading off world.

* * *

><p>Emmanuel stood over the body with his practised impassiveness, using an expressionless face as a mask to hide the storm of rage and sorrow welling up in him, hands clasped behind his back. His mother was just as beautiful as he remembered, dark skin creased with smile lines that even now brought some life to her still face. She was mostly covered by a body bag, zipped up to the neck, lying at the end of a long row of identical bags with different faces appearing at the top.<p>

Looking across the small field of the bags that had been laid out on what remained of Blackwall's town square, he knew that it was nowhere near the full population. A tear slipped through the mask then, for his hometown, his mother, and for the corrupted innocents that had done this.

Gunfire in the distance attracted his attention, but it was over quickly. The report came through the radio a second later.

"Bravo Team reporting enemy contact. My patrol encountered two tangos in a side street. Tangos were terminated, no losses." Emmanuel answered back without moving.

"Acknowledged Bravo Team. Continue your patrol." Two clicks sounded down the radio as an affirmative. No one liked to talk to someone like him. Emmanuel stood there over his mother's corpse for a long time, reports of dwindling fighting flowing through his radio.

When the sun was beginning to set, he turned quite suddenly and walked away, grief sated. For now. The rescue workers at the edge of the square watched him come closer nervously, the older ones immediately finding something important to do.

The young workers followed suit until only an unlucky foreman's aid remained facing him, knees shaking slightly. They might not know exactly who or what he was, but they had all seen him deal with a dozen Reavers who had managed to sneak around the patrols and get back to the square.

Emmanuel would usually have gone easy on the man, but he had no patience for it today.

"Status report." The man, a boy really, made a high pitched squeak. Emmanuel's eyes bored into him like the drills being used on the collapsed buildings behind him.

"Now!" The boy jumped, but managed to start talking.

"We got a body sir. Dunno if he's alive though, can't reach 'im t' get a pulse and he ain't movin'." The man looked very uncomfortable for a moment. Emmanuel sighed.

"What is it?"

"Um, well. 'E's wearin' wot looks like a Browncoat uniform." Emmanuel almost choked then, mind reaching to wild possibilities.

"He has a metal arm?" The aide gawped as did many of the busy looking workers around him.

"'Ow did you know that?"

"That doesn't matter, just get him out as quickly as possible. Now!" The entire team jumped into action, the foreman appearing as if from nowhere, bellowing orders. His aide turned to his boss with the full intention of giving him the evil eye, but Emmanuel caught his arm. The man almost had a heart attack there on the rubble pile as he met Emmanuel's gaze.

"Take me to where he is." It was not a request.

* * *

><p>Valentine Lockwood was having lunch. His meal consisted of a rare-cooked steak with shrimp, all of it covered in a wonderful garlic cream sauce. It was however the company that he was enjoying most. Elizabeth Morgan was a very beautiful woman, a highly sought after model who had brains to match her looks. She was also lying naked on his desk with the delicious steak on the curve of her back. The New London skyline was visible through the plate glass window behind her. Altogether, it was an extremely decadent picture.<p>

As Lockwood cut through his steak with extreme care, they carried in a perfectly normal dinner conversation.

"You know Elizabeth, I do appreciate you coming today, I don't mind telling you that I've been needing some time to relax what with everything that's been going on." She smiled back at him through lustrous dark hair.

"It's my pleasure Valentine, I know that it has been difficult what with all of the terrible lies being told these days." Her eyes twinkled then. She knew perfectly well that Miranda was very, very true. She was also a very intelligent woman with a ruthless streak a mile wide who liked men with power. And you didn't get many men more powerful than Valentine Lockwood. He smiled at her.

"There's no need for that my dear, you know as well as I that Miranda is real. It was inevitable that the secret would come out some day, so there's no use crying about it." He sighed.

"However, the loss of River Tam is truly lamentable."

"Who's that?"

"River Tam is an exceptionally intelligent girl who showed the potential for psychic abilities. My organisation acquired her to attempt to realise that potential. To an extent, it worked. However, we didn't count on her brother. He rescued her from the facility, but unfortunately not before some of my colleagues were invited to view her progress. I don't know who she pulled the truth about Miranda from, it could even have been myself." He shook his head and took another bite of steak and shrimp.

"It doesn't matter really. She is however truly remarkable. My operative was meant to acquire her, but it seems that he has defected." Seeing that her lover was drifting, Elizabeth spoke up.

"She sounds special. Should I be jealous?" He laughed, and traced the sharp tip of his knife over her buttock and down her thigh. He couldn't tell whether the shiver of delight that she gave was real or not.

"Oh no my dear, she is remarkable in one way, you in another entirely." He took one last bite of steak, and stood, running his fingers over her shoulders.

"Time for dessert." He leaned in hungrily, but just before their lips met, his communicator bleeped. Insistently. With a low growl he grabbed it from the desk and activated it.

"Someone had better be committing a war crime Phillips!" A voice, controlled and clipped answered back without a shred of fear.

"I'm afraid not Mr. Lockwood. However, it appears that I've found them." Valentine smiled. Them could only mean one particular group of people.

"Excellent. Phillips I want you to take an SAS team after them. I want them alive and unspoiled. Understood?" There was no silence or hesitation before the answer came through.

"Sir, in my opinion a group with this reputation warrants three teams at least." Valentine smiled, nodding.

"Very well. Make it quick and be careful." Something that could have been accused of sounding like humour crept into Phillips's voice.

"I'm always careful sir." Lockwood laughed out loud.

"Liar." He ended the call and turned back to Elizabeth.

"Now, where were we?"


End file.
